Page 63 of Revelations

Clearing her throat didn’t help. “It’s …it’s…” Her voice trailed off.

How was she to explain the storm of emotions that he incited within her? Why would she? She had lied to herself, denied everything for so long. But the truth was crystal clear, perhaps it had always been.

Kael frowned and put his hands on his hips where the waistband of his jeans dropped lower. Her eyes strayed downward of their own accord.

“Well? You were saying…” His tone was impatient, but clipped with apprehension, waiting to discover if she would release him from his hell or plunge him farther into the fiery depths.

“What you said…that’s not true. It’s…quite the opposite.” Her brain fought to find the right words, but her mouth forged recklessly ahead anyway. “If I can reasonably guess that you’re going to touch me, whether it’s a handshake or a simple grazing of the skin, I can fight to control my reaction. But it’s so hard, and sometimes I can’t help it.”

The words just were not coming out right, and she knew that. But thisexplanation was a disaster.

Kael stepped back, his eyes ablaze. “So what you’re saying is that I’ve disgusted you even more than you’ve shown over the years?” For a split second, the irises of his eyes turned crimson. His voice was stilted. “Just how much do you despise me, Greylyn?”

She shook her head wildly, wet strands of her own hair slapped against her face “No. No.No!” So much for the truth shall set you free… This was far worse. “For pity’s sake, will you just listen for a damn second? I said it’s NOT like that at all.” Only then did she realize that she was yelling the words.

Still sitting on the sodden ground, Greylyn stared up at him, hoping somehow the meaning of her words sank in, no matter how poorly they were being conveyed. A change came over him; slowly, at first. His eyes widened like saucers and returned to their lustrous amber color. His face went slack-jawed. His posture relaxed and his arms fell to his sides. He stood there, unmoving.

Not sure how to interpret his reaction, she bit her lower lip.

Finish it. You’ve gone this far, girl. It’s all or nothing now.

“When we touch, it’s like an…an electric shock. Like being struck by lightning…if being struck by lightning hurt like hell but also felt so…good.”

Wow. That didn’t even make sense.

She stole a glance at his face. Kael’s mouth hung open, but no words came out. Over four hundred fifty years of forced loneliness, and she had no idea how to put her feelings into coherent words that he couldunderstand. Hell, even she did not understand herself.

“There’s some form of crazy energy that flows from you, into me, and throughout my entire body. Makes me feel…alive… in a way I’ve never felt before. I don’t know how to explain it the right way,” she sputtered. “It’s just… not a bad feeling that causes me to jump when you’re near. Hell, you don’t even have to lay a finger on me and my body hums like a live wire. It’s just…just there. I know I should fight it. Hell, I’ve fought it so long, but…”

Words failed her again. How could she possibly explain things to him? All logic screamed to run away, but logic completely disappeared when it came to Kael. How could she make him understand that? When every guardian instinct told her to cut him down and move on, Greylyn’s human heart and body wanted—needed—him, like nothing else that she had ever experienced before.

Dead silence filled the air, removing all sounds of crickets or the mosquitoes buzzing, even the bullfrog. It was as if the entire world had stopped to wait for Kael’s response.

Moments passed. He did not move. He did not speak. Her insides twisted into a messy ball of emotional yarn. She barely dared to breathe.

Greylyn had just admitted what she had denied for so long; every ounce of her was now raw and vulnerable to Kael. The longer the silence, the more the embarrassment weighed on her heart like a ton of iron held up by a flimsy lace handkerchief.

Desperate to get away, she pushed herself up, but slipped in the foul-smelling mud. “Let’s just forget this,” she babbled, tripping over the words. “I know a white witch who I can get a memory-blocking spell from. That will work perfectly. Let’s just forget thatthisever happened.” Greylyn scrambled for the right words to take it all back. But how could she take back the only words that had set her free?

Tears free-flowed down her face. What had she expected him to do or say? Had she really thought thathe would walk over and wrap her in his arms and never let her go? Her brain might have considered the confession to be futile, but her heart wanted so much more.

Greylyn did the only thing that she knew to do when it came to Kael. She turned to run.

In a blur, a hand slammed down on her shoulder, forcing her back around. But the movement was too quick and the ground too slippery. With a full pivot as her body twisted, they both fell into the mud. Kael’s body cushioned hers as she fell on top of him; every inch of her front touched him. The jolt of slamming into the ground did not even register over the fire thatwas raging through her body from their contact.

With the breath knocked out of her lungs, she stared into the most welcoming eyes that she had ever seen. A strange feeling washed over her; familiar, but unworldly at the same time.

His lips, hovering only a few inches from her own, were full and sensuous, curved up at the corners in a blissful grin. She longed to run her tongue over them, but she found her body to be paralyzed, unable to obey even the simplest of commands, such as “Breathe.”

The heat of a blush crept into her cheeks. Through their wet clothes, she felt his muscles ripple underneath her. The hammering of their hearts combined to deafen the night. A deep, unfamiliar yearning filled her.

A muddy hand came up to move aside a lock of her hair and tuck it behind her ear. Smooth fingers caressed from there, down her cheek, to cup her chin with his thumb, hovering above her trembling lower lip. His head inched upward, never breaking eye contact, not even blinking.

An inner voice taunted her, breaking her paralysis caused by the overwhelming flood of desire pulsating throughout her body.

Run!

Greylyn tried to scuttle backward, off Kael and to her feet, but he held on to the small of her back with one hand and moved his other hand deftly from her face to the base of her neck to hold her in place; their faces were a mere inch or less apart.

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